Worcester SEO Podcast: Experts on the Wire

If you haven’t discovered Dan Shure’s new SEO podcast, stop reading this and go listen. It’s that good.

In just the third episode, Dan spends an hour with Brian Dean of Backlino fame delving into detail about Backlinko’s success. The advice and examples are brilliant.

Another SEO podcast? Really?

Yes, really. This one is good. Really good.

I had my doubts at first too, but Experts on the Wire is excellent so far. After just a few episodes, it’s clear that Dan is covering all the major topics you’d hope for.

The best part of “Wire” is that Dan won’t let it become an SEO echo chamber, repeating the same talking points repeated ad nauseam.

Instead, Dan takes great care to keep topics and questions relatable to business owners, startup founders, and young marketers just getting their start in the industry.

No SEO PhD required.

So without further ado, here’s what you’re missing.

Here’s a quick write-up of Episode 3 with Backlinko. Read this and tell me you don’t need more.

Episode 3 with Brian Dean

Backlinko needs to introduction to most of the SEO world. But for readers who don’t spend their nights crawling SEO forums (doesn’t everyone?), here’s some important background info on who Brian Dean is. Any why we should listen to him.

Backlinko.com Stats

SEO training company, with a hugely successful blog

150,000 unique visitors per month (10,000 may be considered above-average)

70,000 email subscribers

How his site is set up

Visit Backlinko.com and you’ll see 3 navigation options:

About

Contact

Proven SEO Tips

That’s it.

No “hire me” or anything like that. Just a blog and an email newsletter.

No services page, nothing to buy

According to Brian, too many options kill conversions. More than 2 or 3 options, and conversions start to drop.

His priority #1 is sign up for his newsletter. Priority #2 is for visitors to read his blog.

So..

Why distract people with a list of services that most won’t buy anyway?

The Backlinko brand is built on expertise. Brian writes and publishes insanely helpful posts once a month or so. That’s all the sales driver his website needs.

Reducing the number of options on every page

But what about companies (like ours) that offer more than one service? How do we sell?

This one borders on user experience. Brian’s philosophy is “do one thing and do it well”

But he admits that if it works, then it works—don’t quit on a money-maker just for SEO reasons.

But the idea is clear: to inspire user action, less is more.

Be skeptical of SEOs/marketers

We get a bad rap. People who heard about SEO in the 90s or early 2000s think we’re snake oil salespeople.

And some of us are. In fact, most of us are. And they’re giving the rest of us a really bad name.

The ½%

Brian claims (anecdotally, of course) that 99.5% of SEO agencies out there are untrustworthy.

Most aren’t evil, out to take your money. They’re just bad at SEO.

And with Google, one mistake can cost your business months of ranking penalties.

The risks are too high. Don’t hire shady or ineffective SEOs.

How to find a good SEO agency

Try SEO yourself…temporarily.

Even if you want to hire an SEO agency—and you probably should—try to learn the ropes of SEO yourself first.

Write some blog posts

Optimize on-page

Read up on the forums

Learn by doing.

That way, when you finally talk to an agency, you’ll understand what works and what doesn’t, what’s hard and what’s easy, etc.

Basically, the only way to know good SEO is to know good SEO. Arm yourself with knowledge and experience.

“You can’t fail fast enough” (but don’t play with clients’ money)

SEOs should always be learning. Failure teaches us more than success sometimes.

Brian advocates failing quickly and often. Each failure—as long as you keep going—better prepares you for your ultimate success.

But.

Don’t play with clients’ money.

If you fail with whitehat techniques, the worst case scenario is the project didn’t improve ranks. But since it’s whitehat, you won’t lose anything either. All you lost was money.

But understand your clients’ aversion to risk:

All you have to lose is a client contract. Your client could lose their entire business model, not to mention the fees they paid you.

A beautiful infographic with tons of valid data is an excellent start. Combine that with 2,000 words beneath it, and you’ve got a killer formula for winning content.

“Skyscraper Technique” and “Prop Words”

Ever heard of those?

Probably, if you’re into SEO at all.

The Skyscraper Technique is Brian’s term. He made it up and gave it to the world as a shortcut. It means “publish something that’s better than the best.”

He could have trademarked it, but that would be dumb. It would take more time and money to file the trademark, and it wouldn’t gain him anything (people just use the term anyway—they’re not going to pay him royalties or something). So he gave it away to the SEO community.

Prop Words is a similar term that Dan Shure himself made up. These are examples of branded concept content.

It’s like this…

Take your idea and distil it down to its simplest form. That’s usually called an elevator pitch—an explanation of your idea/business short and sweet enough that you can deliver it in the time it takes to ride an elevator.

Then come up with a mental image to symbolize your idea. In Brian’s case, that’s skyscraper. Everyone knows what it is and can easily picture it in their mind.

Collect compelling examples of how your idea works—enough that you can convince people that your technique actually works.

Use your mental image as a shortcut:

Trying to tell people about “be better than the best”? Call it “skyscraper.”When they ask “what’s skyscraper?”

When they ask “what’s skyscraper?” Boom, time for your pitch:

“It’s like walking down a city street and seeing huge skyscrapers. No one wants to build the second tallest building in the world. They all want to be the tallest. Find the tallest skyscraper in your niche and build on top of it.”

Not every branded concept nickname works, though. That needs some marketing research in and of itself.

Local SEO for real estate is really easy. If you know how to target your audience in their geographic region, real estate SEO is a breeze. Forget about generic keywords. In this guide, I'll tell you how to dominate your market for local SEO real estate searches.